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Pragmatism without Foundations 2nd ed: Reconciling Realism and Relativism
In this remarkable book, Joseph Margolis, one of America's leading and most celebrated philosophers, examines the relationship between two apparently contradictory philosophical tendencies - realism and relativism. In order to examine the relationship between the two, Margolis establishes a taxomony of different kinds of realism and different kinds of relativism. Drawing on both the analytic and Continental traditions, he examines (from a pragmatic point of view) the various relationships between these two tendencies in the light of two major developments in modern philosophy - the concern for praxis and the concern for historicity.
Twenty years after it was first published to great acclaim, Margolis has updated Pragmatism Without Foundations in the light of his most recent work and the development of pragmatism in the intellectual world. This second edition includes an updated preface and a brand new epilogue addressing these developments and their implications for his earlier work.
Twenty years after it was first published to great acclaim, Margolis has updated Pragmatism Without Foundations in the light of his most recent work and the development of pragmatism in the intellectual world. This second edition includes an updated preface and a brand new epilogue addressing these developments and their implications for his earlier work.
- GenresPhilosophy
306 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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December 10, 2017
I finished it! This was hard work, partly due to Margolis's terse and somewhat technical style. He's not aiming to be a popularising communicator of pragmatist ideas here, which is just as well.
The book also (and this is probably due to its origin as a series of separately-published papers) meanders all over the place. At one point in stumbles across something like a central argument, then it tails off into a further series of digressions about tangentially-related arguments by Putnam, which Putnam himself has since disowned. Margolis is clearly a smart man and I found his arguments interesting at times, but I would have preferred a book which did a better job of keeping the bigger picture in view.
The book also (and this is probably due to its origin as a series of separately-published papers) meanders all over the place. At one point in stumbles across something like a central argument, then it tails off into a further series of digressions about tangentially-related arguments by Putnam, which Putnam himself has since disowned. Margolis is clearly a smart man and I found his arguments interesting at times, but I would have preferred a book which did a better job of keeping the bigger picture in view.
Displaying 1 of 1 review